


It's just an antler.

by DemonicInformant



Series: Monsters Walk Among Us [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monsters Are Just Like Humans, Emotional Hurt, Established Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Body Altering, Hurt, M/M, Wendigo, implied wincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 14:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19021714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonicInformant/pseuds/DemonicInformant
Summary: How was he supposed to protect her if he couldn't even protect himself?( Set in a world where monsters and creatures are as normal as humans. )





	It's just an antler.

**Author's Note:**

> Just like modern society, there's segregation, bias, prejudice and racism against all kinds of species and people. Vampires are thought of as bloodthirsty monsters and werewolves are carnivorous killing machines. Wendigos are considered to be forest protectors, but there are groups out there that hunt them, bring harm to them, kill them solely because of what they are.

The forest was so quiet. Peaceful, tranquil, like nothing could cut through the silence it held. It had a life all its own, a kind of harmony the world lacked beyond the treelines. Something was different in the air, an ancient kind of warmth that seemed to permeate the bark and the blades of grass. It was an empty forest, this time of night. Everything in its place, everything calm. No hunting, nothing so vicious as a fox stalking a rabbit or a deer running from a bear. Peaceful. Tranquil. Calm. Not without its protection. 

 

Cloven feet pressed indentations into drying mud, the rain from the night before still leaving the air with a pleasant sweet smell. Earthy, homey. He always came after it rained, always felt the pull of the forest, the woods that sung to him when he slept, called to him like a mother to a babe. In so many ways, he wondered if the forest  _ was  _ his mother, if the blond hair and bright eyes he knew from childhood was none other than the forest. Its own gentle gift to him, something concrete and stable. Someone he could call  _ mom _ . He knew that was ridiculous, really, but when he stepped through the broken branches of a windy storm and crossed along brush that was pulled into a path long trekked, he knew he wasn’t in his right mind. As right of a mind as that was, at least. 

 

No birds chirped in the trees, nothing echoed or called distress to other inhabitants, because he was welcomed here. Yes, there was a distinct lack of wildlife, but what was to be expected? A parade of animals? Fox and deer alike trotting along either side of him? Now  _ that  _ was ridiculous. He wasn’t a  _ God _ , no matter how often so many humans thought those of his kind were. He wasn’t  _ born _ from the forest. The forest simply… lived through him; lived  _ with _ him. It hummed his name at night, when he was tangled up in sheets and arms, legs locked with another pair. He wasn’t what kept the forest alive. That was an asinine notion, absolutely inane. The forest kept  _ itself _ alive. He simply… gave it a reason to persevere. 

 

He was her protector, her guardian. When the rains came, so too did hunters, and so too did he to frighten them away. Tales were told of his kind roaming the forests and woods before they were ever given the same rights as anyone else, as any _ thing _ else. He wasn’t  _ new _ to the world. Neither was his kind. Far from; they’d lived upon the planet for as long as any other races did. As long as the vampires roamed the lands, in search of new meals and new charges, so too did the wolves. Running through towns long before they were ever accepted as part of society, thought to be plagues and curses on a land. 

 

Twigs snapped and he wanted nothing more than to continue on, to believe it just another deer, one more hare to come and investigate, but he couldn’t, could he? And so he looked. He looked, and he was granted what he feared most. **Intruders**.

 

* * *

 

Before glinting blades and hooded robes, burns in wrists of a group known for harming that which they didn’t understand, there was pain. Searing, piercing,  _ pain _ . It stung, burned, ripped. His skin tore this way and that, his flesh ached and his bones throbbed. It was something out of a horror movie, undoubtedly. That which no one ever had the stomach to stay and record. He knew his brother didn’t. How could he, when the screams would become so deafening, so monstrous? He  _ became _ something else. He didn’t shift to a different part of himself, he  _ was  _ something different after the change. There was nothing left of him but his mind, his thoughts. Nothing external remained, because nothing external  _ could _ remain.

 

Bone snapped and skin split, screams echoed into the forest and fluttered up birds, sent animals of all caliber running, hiding. It was terrifying, really. He knew that if he ever  _ could  _ hear it himself, it’d jostle his stomach and all its contents. But that was always the beginning. The first few stages were the worst. When he was first thrust into the change, it was the most painful. It was what he always forgot, what his brain wiped from his memory banks in an effort to protect him. 

 

Clothed knees hit water-less mud, the skin beneath the fabric burning like a thousand fires were coursing across his body. It was the first of many sounds to fall, a strangled call for a name that wasn’t going to come. It echoed, bounced off the trees as he frantically (  _ hands shaking, his fingers were trembling, his body was shuddering, willing the pain to end and never return _ ) pawed off the jacket, the shirt, all his upper layers. Anything to feel the wind against his skin. 

 

But it didn’t help. It never did. It couldn’t, when that burn was  _ below  _ his skin, when it ached and clawed at him, demanded his attention and his focus.  _ You need to pay attention _ , it screamed, like a voice not his own was invading his head. The next scream was of pain. Pure and guttural, the curve of his spine cracking. It hurt. It fucking  _ hurt _ . It hurt like nothing else, ever before. It hurt like a thousand knives were being scraped down his spine  _ from the inside out _ . His spine split, snapped, vertebrae popping and spreading to allow the lengthening. More formed, grew in empty places. It still wasn’t the worst. No, God no. The worst was yet to come.  _ Long  _ down the line of all the he was going to experience, all that he and so many others of his kind experienced whenever the forest called for them, pleaded for them to come. Like a siren song. Sweet and soft. 

 

Guttural and  _ desperate _ , that was the next scream that tore through. It clawed to the surface, just like his fingers did at his chest. The bones there snapped and cracked, split until he was accommodating to his newly lengthened spine. He cried that name again, a second time in the darkness of the forest, before hunching forward and breathing deep, shallow,  _ aching  _ breaths. Each one filled his lungs before being punched right back out. Every time was a little different. Something went first, never the same things in a row. Last month, it was his sternum that broke first, his legs to follow, and his shoulders. But never,  _ ever _ , did his head move from last place. 

 

He’d fallen forward then, crashed to hands and knees, a line of red slipping from his lips to the mud pressing between his fingers. Sure, he could change when he felt like it, but it was always after sharp snap of his mind, something that let him almost… sleep through it. When it was mandatory,  _ an obligation _ , he was far less lucky. Blood dripped from his nose. Two, three, five drops as he struggled to breathe, to get through it again. He’d be drained come morning, he knew that, but he’d have someone there with him. He’d have familiarity, soft hands to smooth through muddied and mucky hair, a kiss for chapped and dry lips, a smile to remind him he’d lived through another change. 

 

Another scream to echo into the forest and his body fell to the mud, knees giving way as he rolled to his back. Hands frantically pried his jeans from his legs, got them halfway down before he was convulsing and biting his tongue. Something to heal when he was done, then. When it settled, he could  _ feel  _ the difference in the weight of his legs. Ah, so his mind had given him a little bit of a break, then. His left was lighter, his right thrice as heavy. Longer, lankier, locked in different places than was normal. His mind wasn’t so kind for the left. His back arched and again he sobbed for relief, cried out to the sky above blackening with the coming night. When he was quiet again, he was still bipedal, feet cloven and hooved, legs longer than ever before, bowed a bit more. So much for that pair of jeans, then. 

 

His body struggled to relax, fought for comfort where there was none, because things were only halfway complete. His arms joined the fray, his hips and his fingers, hands and shoulders. He was in tears by the time his head was left. It was always last, always the most painful, the worst of the worst. 

 

If the sudden blackout that took over his mind was any indication, his body was never equipped to let him get through it in one conscious piece. And it never let him  _ remember _ afterward. 

 

So all was said and done. He was what Mexico called a Chupacabra, what some cultures believed was a demon. His favorite, the widely accepted of all, was the title gifted by the Native Americans. It flowed with the world’s definition, with what most people now believed his kind to be. Spirits. Protectors. Guardians of the forests and woods. 

 

Through the woods he patrolled, across broken branches and fallen limbs, the storm from the night before granting the forest a muddy floor and a mess to call its own. It was a time of calm, of peace. Tranquility, broken by snapped twigs and similar figures. Multiple. Too many to be simple hunters. Unafraid of him, at that. All that remained of a man with jade eyes and tan skin was his mind, his thoughts. And his thoughts were frantic, desperate, fearful of what he was seeing, of who was approaching. He knew those marks burned into their wrists. He knew those blades, those robes. He’d seen them plenty of times before, taken in snapshots shown on news programs. 

 

Warning bells were flashing in his mind, ringing loud. He needed to run, he knew that. He had to  _ go _ . He had to  _ leave _ .  _ This  _ wasn’t safe.  _ They  _ weren’t safe.  _ You’re not safe _ . It’s voice whispered in his head, guttural and animalistic and he backed away. God, help him, he backed away. Even broad as he was,  _ powerful _ as he was, he backed away. He needed to; they were dangerous. They weren’t afraid and they were advancing, cornering him like he was nothing more than a wild animal, a beast to be tamed. Prey in a snare. 

 

The noise he made was inhuman. It was loud, a warning, a threat. Yet still, they advanced. They approached, until he was backing into a tightly winding circle of robes, glinting blades, hoods and marks upon their wrists. Again he called,  _ cried _ for them to stop, to  _ leave _ . They weren’t welcome in his woods, in his forest.  _ They were intruders.  _

 

It hurt for months from then. The forest stopped calling. It stopped wishing for him to return, because he was not the same as he was months prior. All that made him her defender was ripped from him. It was sawed away by hooded monsters and blessed knives. It was cut from him, torn from his grasp, from his hands. He was once so beautiful, such a force of nature, a marvel of the forest. All that he was, was hers in turn. He was born whole, born with dots of bone from his skull. A month at a time, he bore witness to their growth, to  _ his _ growth. For all his days, he gave the forest all she asked, all she needed. And in turn, she gave him home, tranquility, a place his kind could roam free. He was her Wendigo, blessed with antlers of six points each, long and beautiful, bone white and broad enough to puncture anyone. They were his to hold, unique to him. 

 

He was the forest’s protector, sworn to be her defender since the first day he breathed her air. How could he ever return to her? He was a Wendigo with a piece of antler _missing_. Incomplete, incomplete, incomplete. He wasn’t whole, not anymore. How could he ever protect her again? 

 

_ He couldn’t even protect himself.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Dean's Wendigo form goes by W. Description based loosely off of art by Aguilas on DeviantART, among other sources.  
> ( https://www.deviantart.com/aguilas/art/Wendigo-713029252 )


End file.
